Seven Basic Quality Management Tools

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Seven Basic Quality tools documents

Definition of Quality Management -- it is a method for ensuring that all the activities necessary to design, develop and implement a
product or service are effective and efficient with respect to the system and its performance. It is also a principle set by the company
to endure the continuous advocacy of quality services and products, or the further improvement of it.

Welcome to QT-charts knowledge base section.
Hopefully you will find some of them useful in your work. (Read articles below to learn more.)

Quality Circles

orginal text on
http://www.freequality.org

Introduction of the Concept

The purpose of
this paper is to inform the reader about what a quality circle is and its many
uses."A quality circle is a small,
voluntary group of employees and their supervisor(s), comprising a team of about
8 to 10 members from the same work area or department" (Russell,
647).Quality circles were first
developed in the 1960s by a man named Kaoru Ishikawa in Japan (Russell,
648).The Union of Japanese Scientists
and Engineers (JUSE) were the ones who paid for the research that put the
theories about behavior science and quality control together (Quality circles,
1).

Quality
circles are useful because the members of the team are from the same workplace
and face similar problems.This concept
is a management tool that has many benefits for their own work
environment.Some examples of those
benefits are control and improvement of quality, more effective company
communication, using employee problem solving capabilities, and more job
involvement (Quality Circles, 1).

How to Use the Concept

In using the
Quality circles concept there are three main parts to go through.The steps are identifying, analyzing, and
solving quality-related issues (Russell, 648).After the quality circle is set up the next step would be to train the
group.The training is to make sure all
the voluntaries understand the order and meaning of the steps and how to go
through them.

Following
training is the first real step in the Quality circle process-problem
identifying.At this step the members of
the group are free to brainstorm about the problems they face in the
workplace.Within this brainstorming
session there are no bad ideas.After
the members have some up with everything they can think of they go through the
list and analyze each problem individually.

This
step of problem analysis is to look closer at one problem at a time and having
everyone's input on how to solve it.This step involves opinions from the members and research.The opinions are important because the
members in this group are the ones who are faced with the problems at
hand.The research can help to show the
member what the result or effect will be with the way they may choose to solve
a problem.After they are done with the
analysis and come up with the solution they have entered the next step.

The
last step in quality circles is the solution.The members prepare how they intend to solve the problem that was first
presented in the brainstorming.The
solution is explained in how it works and what the solution results should be.
Those results are then showed to the mangers and group as a whole in a
presentation type of meeting.The three
steps of identifying, analyzing, and solving are all very important in
completing the process of a quality circle (Russell, 648).

Examples Where the Concept is Used

Quality
circles can be used by large business and small groups. One example of a large
firm using this concept is Xerox.Xerox
has an annual teamwork day and because of a past teamwork day they were able to
prevent 6500 tons of waste from going to a landfill.Their solution at the time of seeing the
problem with the about of waste they were producing was a recycling
program-which worked (Russell, 649).

United
Airlines used quality circles to look at the problem of no-shows and sick leave
problems.As a result of the employees
analysis of the problem sick leave was cut by 17 percent which saved United
Airlines $18.2 millions in the first year (Russell, 650).Quality
circles have been used to help smaller group of people like Kimberly
Oshiro.Kimberly used this concept to
try and find out what caused road rage among her and her friends.From that quality circle they learned that
speeding and tailgating were causes of road rage.As a group they learned to calm themselves
while driving (Report, 3).

This
concept has been shown to improve work productivity, save money and even to
save lives.Xerox did a good thing by
improving the world by making less waste.United Airlines increased productivity and saved money, which in the
long run could have lowered fairs.From
Kimberly her life and the life's of her friends could be preventing road
rage.Quality circles are a very
powerful concept in the real world.

Where to get More Information about the Concept

Eric Digests
online is a great place to find out more about quality circles.The wed address is
http://www.ed.gov/database/eric_digests/ed353008.html. On this web site it goes
into great detail about what quality circles are.The site also covers ways that quality
circles are utilized and gives examples of places that it can be used.Within those examples it shows how this
concept is useful.The main reason this
site is a good place to find additional information is because the site also covers
some of the problems with quality circles.